Celebrating the 100th birthday of Enver Hoxha:
Architect of socialist Albania, anti-revisionist fighter, and one of the great Marxist-Leninist heroes of the 20th century

Born in Gjirokastër, southern Albania, on 16 October 1908, Enver Hoxha was involved in politics from a young age – at just 16, he became secretary of the Students Society of Gjirokastër, an anti-monarchist movement. A highly capable student, he won a scholarship to further his studies in France, where he spent the early 1930s. There he found an active communist movement, and started to immerse himself in communist activity and Marxist literature, reading such works as Marx’s Capital and Engels’ Anti-Dühring.

Hoxha returned to Albania in 1936, becoming a school teacher. He was dismissed from his post when, following the Italian invasion of 1939, he refused to join the Albanian Fascist Party. Driven underground, he became actively involved in the communist movement, and, at the founding conference of the Communist Party of Albania (later renamed the Albanian Party of Labour) on 8 November 1941, he was chosen as a Central Committee member.

In the remaining years of the second world war, Hoxha emerged as a most able and inspiring party member, working tirelessly all over the country. He played a crucial role in organising the armed struggle of the united front against fascism, leading the Army of National Liberation. He was also the main inspirer of the new forms of underground popular power that were emerging – the National Councils of Liberation. In March 1943, Hoxha was named First Secretary of the Communist Party.

After the partisans forced the withdrawal of German troops in November 1944, Enver Hoxha became head of government of Albania. In March 1946, the Constituent Assembly proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic of Albania, and nominated Hoxha as its prime minister.